The Sondheim Lyrics Chain

[KathyB]

Goodbye, despoilers of beauty,
Ruin another career.
When you wake up with one genius less--
If you can find me, I'm here.

And I'm free,
Free as a bird in a tree,
Free as the slippers I wear

[scenicdesign71]

I am in a tree.  I am ten.
I am in a tree.
(I was younger then.)

In between the eaves I can see...
(Tell me what I see!)
I was only ten.

[KathyB]

Come, little birds,
Down from the eaves
And the leaves
Over fields,
Out of castles and ponds...

Ahhhhhhh......

Quick, little birds,
Flick through the ashes,
Pick and peck but swiftly
Sift through the ashes

[scenicdesign71]

With finer textures, ash looks fairer,
Which makes it rare, but flaxen's rarer--
(No, no! The flaxen's cheaper!)
--Yes, yes, I know: cheaper, not rarer...

This is one of those rarely-mentioned Sondheim gems that eschews any especially-flashy rhyming to instead dazzle the ear with its sheer fluency.  I don't know whether he researched this stuff -- is, or was, "golden saffron" really a thing? is ash-blonde hair truly rarer, and therefore pricier, than "flaxen"? -- but his catechism of colors and textures, rattled off at speed, sounds so consummately knowledgeable that we can't help but feel renewed admiration for Sweeney's (not to mention Sondheim's) mastery of his craft.  Something similar happens in Road Show with Addison's flamboyant gift for architecture and decor, unfurled in language that impresses the listener less with showy rhyme than with sheer breadth and precision, and -- again like "Wigmaker Sequence" -- with its just-so scansion and the effortless speed at which it appears to tumble from Addison's brain -- all without sounding stilted or artificial.

[KathyB]

Wherever we sleep--
If prices are steep--
We'll always sleep cheaper together.

Whatever the boat I row, you row--

A duo!

[scenicdesign71]

Everybody says no, everybody says stop,
Everybody says: mustn't rock the boat!
Mustn't touch a thing!

Everybody says don't, everybody says wait!
Everybody says: can't fight City Hall,
Can't upset the cart.
Can't laugh at the king!

[KathyB]

The King is giving a festival.

More than life...

I wish...

I wish to go to the festival--

More than riches...

--And the ball...

I wish my cow would give us some milk.

[scenicdesign71]

We all take the bow
(Including the cow),
Though business is lou-
Sy and slow...

[KathyB]

Life is slow but it seems exciting
'Cause Buddy's there.
Gourmet cooking and letter writing
And knowing Buddy's there.

[scenicdesign71]

Pretty women
At their mirrors,
In their gardens,
Letter writing,
Flower picking,
Weather watching--
How they make a man sing!
Proof of heaven
As you're living:
Pretty women!

Another of those rhymes that's deployed so casually that it's easy to miss on first hearing -- partly, in this case, because it's spread across three stanzas (revenge can't be taken in haste, after all) before being clinched in the third: "glancing/dancing/man sing".  Have any of the musicologists managed to link the murderous eroticism of "My Friends" with that of "Pretty Women"?  If I really tried, I might be able to dredge up some music theory from my remote past -- I'm too lazy and unconfident to do so right now, but it wouldn't surprise me if the two songs were somehow harmonically related (beyond the brief reappearance of the former in the intro to the latter, that is: "Now then, my friends, / Now to your purpose...", etc.).

[KathyB]

Heaven knows I try, sir!
Ick!
But there's no one comes in even to inhale—
Tsk!
Right you are, sir. Would you like a drop of ale?
Mind you, I can't hardly blame them—
These are probably the worst pies in London.

[scenicdesign71]

It's the best — !
It's the first — !
It's the finest — !
It's the latest — !
It's the least — !
It's the worst — !
It's the absolutely lowest — !

[KathyB]

He'd never...
Therefore they haven't...
Which makes the question
Absolutely--
Could she?
She daren't...
Therefore I mustn't...
What utter rot!

[scenicdesign71]

Mutter mutter mutter mutter
"Yes, Jerome" mutter
"No, Jerome" mutter
Mutter mutter mutter (that's his
Lawyer, Jerome) mutter
Mutter mutter mutter mutter
"Do it, Jerome!" -- click! --
Sorry, Charley.

[KathyB]

So if you wanna see me faint,
I'll do it happily,
But wouldn't it be funnier
To go and watch a funeral?
So thank you for the
Twenty-seven dinner plates and
Thirty-seven butter knives and
Forty-seven paperweights and
Fifty-seven candleholders...